New Theories for Old Music : an Analysis of Lamentations Settings by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd

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New Theories for Old Music : an Analysis of Lamentations Settings by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2008 New theories for old music : an analysis of Lamentations settings by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. Enoch Samuel Alan Jacobus 1983- University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Jacobus, Enoch Samuel Alan 1983-, "New theories for old music : an analysis of Lamentations settings by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd." (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 672. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/672 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NEW THEORIES FOR OLD MUSIC: AN ANALYSIS OF LAMENTA TIONS SETTINGS BY THOMAS TALLIS AND WILLIAM BYRD By Enoch Samuel Alan Jacobus B.A., Asbury College, 2006 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Louisville In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Music School of Music University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky May 2008 Copyright 2008 by Enoch S. A. Jacobus All rights reserved NEW THEORIES FOR OLD MUSIC: AN ANALYSIS OF LAMENTATIONS SETTINGS BY THOMAS TALLIS AND WILLIAM BYRD By Enoch Samuel Alan Jacobus B.A., Asbury College, 2006 A Thesis Approved on March 27, 2008 by the following Thesis Committee: Thesis Di@tor -. 11 DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my college theory professor Dr. Vicki Bell who awakened in me a love for music theory and a love for Renaissance choral music. III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my major professor and thesis committee chair, Dr. Anne Marie de Zeeuw, for her guidance and encouragement. She had the wisdom to know when to push me forward and when to let me push myself. Many thanks to Dr. Julia Shinnick for giving generously of her time, resources, and thoughtful consideration, and to Dr. Marc Satterwhite for his willingness to spend so much of his spring break reading this document. Even more, I thank my parents, Alan and Lori Jacobus, for laying the foundation for my musical, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional self. IV ABSTRACT NEW THEORIES FOR OLD MUSIC: AN ANAL YSIS OF LAMENTATIONS SETTINGS BY THOMAS TALLIS AND WILLIAM BYRD Enoch S. A. Jacobus March 19, 2008 Movement through pitch space in the Common Practice Period is generally acknowledged as being structured on the fifth relation, whereas movement through the pitch space of the highly chromatic music of the nineteenth century is thought of as being structured on the third relation. Pitch-space structures in pre-tonal music are rarely if ever discussed. This study presents an alternative method for the analysis of pre-tonal music primarily by defining criteria for an examination of long-term movement through pitch space, as seen in the settings from the Lamentations of Jeremiah by English composers Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. It is the author's hypothesis that composers in the latter half of the sixteenth century increasingly organized musical pitch space into circ1e-of-fifths substructures. Even though third relations continued to persist to some extent, it was the fifth relation that was to prevail for the next two centuries. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................... iv ABSTRACT ...................................................................................... v LIST OF EXAMPLES .......................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................. viii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................... 1 II. HISTORICAL CONTEXT ...................................................... 9 III. MAPPING STRUCTURAL POINTS IN PITCH SPACE .................. 18 IV. DISSONANCE AND THE ENGLISH CADENCE ......................... 54 CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 71 REFERENCES ................................................................................... 73 APPENDIX 1: THOMAS TALLIS, LAMENTATIONS 1 .................................. 76 APPENDIX 2: THOMAS TALLIS, LAMENTATIONS 11 ................................. 82 APPENDIX 3: WILLIAM BYRD, DE LAMENTATIONE ................................ 92 CURRICULUM VITAE ........................................................................ 102 VI LIST OF EXAMPLES EXAMPLE PAGE 1. Tallis, Lamentations I, mm. 1-11 ................................................... 21-22 2. Byrd, De Lamentatione Jeremiae prophetae, mm. 66-69 ........................ 23 3. Byrd, De Lamentatione Jeremiae prophetae, mm. 72-79 ........................ 24 4. Byrd, De Lamentatione Jeremiae prophetae, mm. 110-123 ..................... 26-27 5. Tallis, Lamentations I, mm. 1-7 ..................................................... 28 6. Tallis, Lamentations I, mm. 45-48.1. ............................................... 55 7. Altered Version of Tallis, Lamentations I, mm. 45-48.1 ........................ 56 8. Pilgrim, Excerpt from "Tallis's Lamentations and the English Cadence" ..... 58 9. Tallis, Lamentations I, mm. 60-61.1. ............................................... 59 10. Tallis, Lamentations I, mm. 57-58.1 ................................................ 60 11. Tallis, Lamentations II, mm. 11-12 ................................................. 61 12. Tallis, Lamentations II, mm. 46-47 ................................................. 62 13. Tallis, Lamentations II, mm. 57-59.3 ............................................... 63 14. Byrd, De Lamentatione Jeremiae prophetae, mm. 41-42 ........................ 66 15. Byrd, De Lamentatione Jeremiae prophetae, mm. 174-176.1 .................. 67 16. Byrd, De Lamentatione Jeremiae prophetae, mm. 180-190.2 .................. 68-69 Vll LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE la. Tallis, Lamentations I, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 1-17 ...................... 30 1b. Tallis, Lamentations I, pitch-space line graph, mm. 1-17 ........................ 31 2a. Tallis, Lamentations I, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 19-34 .................... .33 2b. Tallis, Lamentations I, pitch-space line graph, mm. 19-34 ...................... 34 3a. Tallis, Lamentations I, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 36-56 ..................... 35 3b. Tallis, Lamentations I, pitch-space line graph, mm. 36-56 ...................... 36 4a. Tallis, Lamentations I, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 58-75 ..................... 36 4b. Tallis, Lamentations I, pitch-space line graph, mm. 58-75 ...................... 37 5a. Tallis, Lamentations II, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 1-45 ..................... 38 5b. Tallis, Lamentations II, pitch-space line graph, mm. 1-45 ....................... 39 6a. Tallis, Lamentations II, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 48-82 ................... 40 6b. Tallis, Lamentations II, pitch-space line graph, mm. 48-82 .................... .41 7a. Tallis, Lamentations II, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 84-132 .................. 41 7b. Tallis, Lamentations II, pitch-space line graph, mm. 84-132 ................... .42 8a. Byrd, De Lamentatione, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 1-77 .................... 43 8b. Byrd, De Lamentatione, pitch-space line graph, mm. 1-77 ..................... 44 9a. Byrd, De Lamentatione, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 80-121 ................. 45 9b. Byrd, De Lamentatione, pitch-space line graph, mm. 80-121 .................. 46 Vlll LIST OF FIGURES, CONTINUED FIGURE PAGE lOa. Byrd, De Lamentatione, pitch-space letter graph, mm. 124-192 ................ 47 lOb. Byrd, De Lamentatione, pitch-space line graph, mm. 124-192 ................. 48 11. Vertical Lattice Model of Pitch Space ............................................. 49 12. Spiral Lattice Model of Pitch Space ................................................ 51 IX CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE Tallis's and Byrd's settings of texts from the Book of Lamentations (probably composed in the 1560s) achieve a level of intricate craftsmanship and emotional appeal that many of their other works do not reach. Although these pieces are often mentioned in passing as being among some of the composers' best works, little has been written that treats them in a any depth, and most of what is said tends to be historical rather than analytical in emphasis. These historical sources are referenced in Chapter II, "Historical Context." Most analytical studies of music from the sixteenth century are broad in scope and general in application, focusing chiefly on mode and counterpoint and giving little attention to harmonic goals or direction. Initially, my analysis followed that approach, but when I discovered unexpected relationships among the first pitches of contrapuntal entries, as well as unusual dissonances at the cadences, then it became apparent that a narrow focus on counterpoint to the exclusion of harmonic and tonal structure would be inadequate. The generally accepted view is that harmonic motion and direction are irrelevant considerations in dealing with linearly-conceived music; however, even though Tallis's and Byrd's music is indeed linear and
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